Athena
The girl's name Athena has been in the national records since 1902, with 53,118 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 109th. About 51,000 Athenas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 9.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Athena
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 53,118
- Estimated living today
- 51,000
- Median age today
- 9
- Peak year
- 2022
- Best rank
- 78th
- Rank in 2025
- 109th
- First recorded
- 1902
How old the living Athenas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 53,118 babies given the name since 1902, about 51,000 are alive — 97 in every hundred. Roughly 36,000 of them are children and 950 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2016 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Ancient Greek
From Middle English Athena, from Latin Athēna, from Ancient Greek Ἀθηνᾶ.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Athenas
- Athena Manoukian (born 1994)Greek singer
- Athena of Monpezat (born 2012)Danish former princess; daughter of Prince Joachim and Princess Marie of Denmark
- Athena Karkanis (born 1981)Canadian television actress
- Athena Chu (born 1971)Hong Kong actress
People named Athena with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Athena is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Athena is most concentrated in Nevada (4.3×), Arizona (2.8×), Alaska (2.6×), California (2.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2022
The most popular girls’ names the year Athena peaked:
Athena elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Athena | 4,433 | 90th |
| France girls | Athéna +2 spellings | 3,525 | 141st |
| Italy girls | Athena | 1,278 | — |
| Belgium girls | Athéna +1 spelling | 391 | 281st |
| Switzerland girls | Athena +1 spelling | 297 | 272nd |
| Scotland girls | Athena | 132 | 172nd |
| New Zealand girls | Athena | 85 | 96th |
| Ireland girls | Athena | 49 | 342nd |
| Northern Ireland girls | Athena | 39 | 253rd |
| Poland girls | Athena | 16 birth registrations | 461st |
| Norway girls | Athena | 15 | 259th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Athena: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Athena | 82 | 0.007% | 325th |
| German girls | Switzerland | Athéna | 4 | 0.000% | 1,086th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Athéna | 101 | 0.023% | 116th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Athena | 77 | 0.018% | 214th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Athena | 33 | 0.051% | 81st |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Athena is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.05% of children were given it – 31 of them.
Athena: rank by region
In 2025, Athena was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Athena | 484 | 10 |
| Wallonia | Athéna | 90 | 27 |
In 2023, Athena was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Athena | 318 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Athena appears in the lists for Province of Namur (68th), Province of Hainaut (80th) and Province of Liège (157th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Athena by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 538th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Athena among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Athena | 31 | 92 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Athena against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.